‘KNEW IT WAS WRONG’

Man Accused of Murdering His Ex-Wife Because She Married Someone Else

Robert McCloud made a video ahead of the murder, saying he planned to kill himself and wasn’t “going to let ‘that hillbilly’ get all his stuff and his wife.”

A Minnesota man fatally shot his ex-wife because he planned to kill himself and didn’t want her “hillbilly” husband to “get all his stuff,” authorities said this week. Robert McCloud, 64, faces an intentional second-degree murder charge for allegedly killing his ex, Lauri Deatherage, who officially split from him three years ago, at her Hennepin County home on Friday. Just four days before her death, the 48-year-old had married Billy Deatherage, and the couple planned to move to Arkansas together.

Cops were called to Lauri Deatherage’s home on Friday morning, and engaged in a 10-hour standoff with McCloud, who threatened to kill himself and told police he shot his ex because he believed she was about to call 911 on him. According to the complaint, McCloud had recorded a video—which he sent to family members via a flash drive—that expressed his wish to die and kill his ex-wife. He allegedly said he “knew it was wrong to involve” his ex, but she “had just remarried and he wasn’t going to let ‘that hillbilly’ get all his stuff and his wife.” McCloud, who faces up to 40 years behind bars if convicted, is due in court Wednesday afternoon.